


on houses

by tothemoon



Category: Haikyuu!!
Genre: Gen, Home, M/M, Post-Canon, Pre-Canon, Slice of Life, Tokyo (City)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-02-09
Updated: 2016-02-09
Packaged: 2018-05-19 06:40:25
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,977
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5957413
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tothemoon/pseuds/tothemoon
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Because despite the fires that roar and the houses that creak, <i>home</i> is a person sometimes.</p>
            </blockquote>





	on houses

**Author's Note:**

  * For [maesilju](https://archiveofourown.org/users/maesilju/gifts).



> for my dear prompter on tumblr, who challenged me to write a fic based on the last lines of [this poem](http://www.theawl.com/2014/04/a-poem-by-richard-siken). I also believe this is probably my shortest hq!! fic to date omg
> 
> (Also, mentions of house fires and such if that bothers you!!)

 

  
  


 

 

 

 _Well_ , it's not like Iwaizumi wanted him here, either.

"I want to go home," Oikawa mouths with one of his cheeks puffed out one morning, a bad habit to keep himself from crying, but he doesn't—not this time—because it's bad form to cry right after breakfast, and _breakfast with Iwaizumi, at that._

“You know you can’t.”

They're both eight when he slips on a pair of _too-small_ tennis shoes at the doorway, knee bruises to match the backs of heels that'll hurt him later; but Iwaizumi presses on anyway, hands Oikawa his backpack, and lets the sight of the day settle over him through an open door. A radiant blue and partly cloudy.

"Well," Iwaizumi says, still groggy from having to share a bed with him last night. He is a firm believer that two boys in the middle of growth spurts should never be subjected to that kind of hell. The crick in his neck laughs in the form of ache, and he takes a deep breath to combat it. "That'll take some time,” he tells Oikawa ( _for the millionth time_ ), “‘cause it’s not like—"

"I know," Oikawa interrupts him, and he looks out a half open door too, less inclined to hold his head up to it. "I was just saying." He casts down, picking at the frayed band-aids on his elbows, and listens to his mother discuss _new house plans_ with Iwaizumi's father in the other room. He hums to block it out; like a summer breeze—or a wisp _trying_ to be a summer breeze—Oikawa marches out of his best friend's house like he owns it, picks a volleyball out from an empty flower pot, and walks away with it like it might be the only thing he'll ever need.

Iwaizumi follows after, anyway. He watches Oikawa shuffle along in shoes too small, and lingers before catching up to him along the road. It never takes too long for him to notice Iwaizumi’s  staring. 

"I didn't realize you were a smaller size than me now," Oikawa continues on casually, refusing to look him directly in the eye. "When I used to sleep over, your shirts were always too big, and your socks always came off my feet while I was asleep."

That was true, up until very recently, but it’s not like Iwaizumi’s been keeping tabs. He casually glances over, pretending not to notice the two centimeters of height between them.

“Well, it's not you'll grow that much more than me,” says Iwaizumi.

“Yeah? And how do you know that?” Oikawa counters.

“Because the gods would never be that mean to me.” Iwaizumi makes a nodding motion to the sky, like he’s struck a deal with the heavens, and continues on.

Oikawa just rolls his eyes. They walk on, eyes ahead, and the the quiet between them hangs heavy. 

"Sorry about the shoes," Iwaizumi continues, back to him. He was never particularly interested in the art of evading gazes anyway. "But I guess they're better than nothing. I mean, at least until your mother finds the time to get you a new pair." 

At this, Oikawa does not look away. Steps slow and scuffle at cracks in the pavement. The smell of ash still hangs in the air. 

 _Almost there_ , Iwaizumi figures, with what's coming up the block, and he thinks to keep Oikawa talking until they get past it.

But they never get past it—because they both know it's hard to disregard the cinders. Awe comes with the ashes. Iwaizumi stops in the same way Oikawa does, and the two of them put aside their usual squabbles to admire what once was: every morning since the _Great Fire at the Oikawa Estate,_ they'd taken to coming to the wreckage before school, to mourn, to speculate, to remember. Iwaizumi did more of the first part, while Oikawa did the second.

They mostly kept the third together, but always in the most meager sense, distractions sought and _agreed upon_ for the most dire of straits. Oikawa usually brought up memories Iwaizumi didn't think was really worth remembering, like the time they ate watermelon in the winter (and how gross that felt), or the time they both caught colds (and hid under a family kotatsu to recuperate). Iwaizumi wonders what he'll bring up today, because he knows the silence might kill Oikawa more than fire or smoke or the sight of a house all up in flames, and he counts the seconds until he says it. In such spaces, Iwaizumi thinks of house slippers and mangled action figures under blankets. He thinks of perished cactuses on the windowsill (rest in peace), and a stray cat's singed tail, hisses made while escaping down an alley. 

At once, he remembers running.

_Running, running, running._

(Iwaizumi wishes he didn’t fall on the way there that night.)

"I met you in that house, Iwa-chan," Oikawa finally says with the strangest sort of finality. Iwaizumi blinks up, caught unaware. He can't say he was expecting that one. When Oikawa sniffs back, cheek puffed out again, Iwaizumi reaches forward, keeps him upright, and looks for paths away from places you can’t get back.

With hands held just to do just that, Oikawa does not protest. 

(Iwaizumi does not protest, either, when Oikawa begins to cry.)

  


 

 

 

 

 

* * *

 

  


 

 

 

(It’s a good thing he never cries for long.) 

(They share a plate of apples instead that afternoon, and Oikawa gulps down the last of his tears.)

  
  


 

 

 

 

* * *

 

  


 

 

 

“At this rate,” one mother says to another, “moving out of the prefecture might be a real possibility. It’s not fair to Tooru, you know, to keep him so confined. This place was made for one family, not two.” 

“He’s been miserable in the house, hasn't he?” 

“Oh, don't think it's been your fault. It hasn't been anyone’s fault.”

“What can be done?" 

“Nothing, I suppose. You know how he is,” Oikawa’s mother answers. “They're coming to an age where it's hard to sit still. _They want to be out there, doing things._ I don't blame him.”

He catches a hitch in his throat. Iwaizumi stirs outside the kitchen doorway when he hears them, complaints dying on his tongue, and lets them perish for good when he forgets about airing any grievances; because even if Oikawa had been especially petulant with the blankets tonight, and Iwaizumi had thought, “ _nope, that's it, this is the final straw_ ,” final didn't seem like the right word anymore. He marches back to his room after this, head so hazy he's sure it's just a matter of a lack of sleep (because as an only child, he had never been good at sharing beds for too long), and comes back to the sight of Oikawa, leant over by the sill with his head to the cosmos. 

Oikawa peers over his shoulder like he knows he’s about to be yelled at, but Iwaizumi doesn't this time.

“You look like you want to fly away,” he says, and the lowness of it makes Oikawa flinch. He doesn't deny it, but he doesn't nod along, either, and the two of them settle back down to sleep.

“Hey, Iwa-chan,” Oikawa calls out, right when Iwaizumi’s hit the verge of sleep, and he's not sure whether the call’s come from the start of some dream or not; he only knows it isn't from the way Oikawa tugs on his sleeve, small but still needling, all an urge to pay attention. 

“Yeah?” he asks right back, turning to face him.

“What if…” Oikawa starts. “What if all these things happened because I wasn't good enough?”

Iwaizumi lifts himself from under the covers, brings Oikawa right up with him, and presses both hands over his shoulders. “ _What_?” he asks, and Oikawa shakes his head _nevermind_ , but they both know Iwaizumi’s never been very good with _nevermind_. “What did you just say?” he insists, closer than he'd like to be, and Oikawa tugs again on his sleeve.

“We lost our first game ever, and then _the fire_ happened, and—” 

“Stop it.”

“But Iwa-chan—” 

“If you don't shut up, I'll pinch you.”

But Oikawa doesn't stop. He almost never does. “What if it's a sign?” he asks instead. “What if I'm not supposed to be playing volleyball, or living in Miyagi? Maybe if my parents are right, you know? Because I could be a tennis star in Nerima, or start soccer in the countryside, if I just _give up_ —”

“ _Shut up—” No way—_

“But what if I'm right—”

_You're not—_

And Oikawa meets his fate with a pillow to a cheek. 

Iwaizumi thinks of what to say. Memories, still fresh, sure to sting, flip back to their first tournament at the _little tykes_ camp and a fire that same evening. There's heat, the kind that lingers in your head when you cry your eyes out from a loss or get too close to the flames, but _never_ the same day— _but of course it had been the same day_ —and Iwaizumi has to remember that _to lose_ could mean a lot of awful things—

and that clear eyes, _a sure grip,_ should never, _ever_ go to something like giving up.

(Because even at eight, Iwaizumi could say he already knew better than _to give up—_ )

( _So don't give up—_ )

And “ _keep going_ ,” Iwaizumi says instead, like it’s inevitable, and he watches Oikawa settle from the worst heights. The tug on his sleep shirt wanes, and a leer lingers on, heavy but with the heart to go on.

At this, Iwaizumi tries to bring himself back down, too. He watches Oikawa fall asleep soon not long after that, nerves too tingly to do the same, and he wonders about the meaning of distance.

Down the horizon line, past telephone wire and tree top billows, stands the empty sky where a hilltop house used to be. Iwaizumi leans over to press a hand to the window, draws stairs leading to a place he'd like to call unbreakable, and dares to connect the frame by stars and similar matter.

  
  


 

 

 

* * *

 

 

 

 

 

 

 _“Iwa-chan,”_ Oikawa mutters from under the covers, maybe hours later. Caught in a dream. Waking all the same. “Won't you sleep soon, too?”

Iwaizumi lies that he might. 

(Because he's never been very good at sharing beds in the first place.) 

(He draws houses until he drifts.)

  


 

 

 

* * *

 

  


 

 

 

Oikawa’s eyes go wide when he sees them, and Iwaizumi compares it to his recent win for a _BEST SETTER AWARD_. 

“Iwa-chan...what is this?” he asks, when they're a month into sharing a house with no end in sight. Oikawa throws his backpack down when Iwaizumi peeks out from under his box fort, a mess of lopsided cardboard, strung up curtains, and a tangle of string lights. Iwaizumi takes a second to look up to his mother, a silent _thank you_ for helping him put this all together, but she just shrugs like she had nothing to do with it; she beckons him on when Oikawa wanders into it, already lost, and Iwaizumi can only go after him. 

He lifts a few curtains, like an explorer on some uncharted land, and sees Oikawa through the gauzy ends. The other boy just laughs, all true, and lets himself reach up along the line of lights. The lights belong in his hands. _He'd already been in a good mood, anyway,_ Iwaizumi thinks, seeking to take none of the credit. 

(He thinks of that _MOST IMPROVED PLAYER_ certificate in Oikawa’s backpack, a saving grace along with their coach’s most recent praise.)

“Iwa-chan, come find me!”

“Coming, coming.”

To keep all the good tidings, Iwaizumi thinks of a name for such spaces. When Oikawa looks back, laughing with a hand out stretched to join the trek, he surrenders without one, realizes that some places are better left unnamed, and makes a reminder to have it later.

  


 

 

 

* * *

 

  
  
  
  


 

He doesn't get to have _later_ , and it's not like he wanted Oikawa here, anyway.

“Tooru, we’re going to have our own house again,” a mother announces in the other room, all hushed in the night, and Iwaizumi swallows down the odd little lump in his throat. He holds his breath about places he might go, because he had decided he'd be friends with him, no matter where he went, even if meant only seeing him on summer holidays and playing on different teams—because _it wouldn't matter_ , he tells himself, _and the world is small enough for us, anyway._  

And so—this is when Iwaizumi flinches into Oikawa’s question: “ _where?”_ he asks, and thoughts of Tokyo, a city, _the goddamned moon_ rise to the occasion. Iwaizumi does not cover his ears. 

“Well—”

There is a silence, a break of a mother’s voice into a laugh and a cry, and the sound of it makes Iwaizumi Hajime break. Tokyo. A big city. The goddamned moon (and maybe beyond). 

“We can stay right here, if you'd like,” she says, and Iwaizumi freezes. “We can build you a brand new house here again, if Miyagi’s the place you want to be.” 

Iwaizumi shuts his eyes closed. Down the hall, Oikawa calls him anyway—like he must've known that Iwaizumi was eavesdropping all along—and waits for him to arrive.

“We have games to win, don't we?” he asks, a stare made right in the eye, and Iwaizumi nods right along.

  
  


 

 

 

* * *

 

  
  
  


“Yeah, we do,” he says.

( _And lives we've gotta live._ )

  
  
  


 

 

* * *

 

  
  
  
  
  


Iwaizumi watches Oikawa make the usual lines, delicate enough with the pen nib that he doesn't feel it in the back of his hand. 

“I'm going to have the biggest windows in the house, wide enough so we’ll be able to sneak onto the roof every night,” Oikawa says, just as he makes the switch to drawing up game plans on Iwaizumi’s other hand; instead of the usual x’s, he draws stars, and Iwaizumi can only wonder if he picked that habit up from a senpai, too. Oikawa laughs when he draws a face on one of them, eyes sharp but lowered in his pursuits. When he accidentally presses too hard, Iwaizumi flinches without recoiling. At this, Oikawa apologizes, shaking his head because he knows he's gotten ahead of himself again, but Iwaizumi doesn't blame him one bit. 

Oikawa peers at his own work, fingers curled over Iwaizumi's. "One day, you're going to kick me out of this house."

" _Hmph._ That's happening, either way," Iwaizumi insists, because they've started building up the foundation of Oikawa's new house up the hill. "But if you'd like, I _could_ chase you out. That wouldn't be a problem."

With a laugh, Oikawa shakes his head. "I don't think so," he says, quite sure, and Iwaizumi finds himself with a quizzical brow. 

"And why not?" Iwaizumi watches Oikawa draw two stars on the floor plan next, smudged but apparent.

"Because you've been nicer to me than usual," Oikawa says, ever observant, _too_ observant for someone his age. Tired of drawing on hands, he gets up, meanders through their kingdom of box forts and hung up curtains, and runs his hands along flickering string lights. He gleams up, wearied. Like he knows they'll have to take it down, soon.

"What?" Iwaizumi asks. "Afraid I won't be when you move out?" 

Oikawa shrugs. "Don't you know, Iwa-chan? I'll be fine with whatever you throw at me." He smiles back, just a bit scrunched, because they both know he doesn't need to be babied. Iwaizumi gets the point, because _he always does,_ and opts to get up with him; and despite the centimeters of height between the two of them (Iwaizumi _swears_ it's increasing every day), he's got the gall to reach up and help him pin the string lights up again, too. 

At this, Oikawa holds his breath, right on the verge of saying something before going red in the face. Iwaizumi flicks him against the forehead. _Out with it, already._

"Iwa-chan."

"Yep," Iwaizumi answers him. 

"Do you think we'll ever get to live together again?" he asks. "When we're older and we've got a house big enough for the both of us?"

" _Why_? I thought you hated it here."

"I don't."

"And what about sleepovers? Isn't that the same thing?"

"You know it isn't," Oikawa insists, voice smaller in his answer, and Iwaizumi knows not to trifle him. With a sigh, he lowers his hands off the wall, letting the lights settle once more, flickering gone, and keeps his sights on the back of his hands. 

"Maybe, I guess," Iwaizumi tells him. _Wait._ " _I mean—_ " He turns to find Oikawa, face scrunched up like he's taken things as a _no._ "It's not a no, though," he amends, because it isn't, he's just not really sure what to say; he thinks of sprawling cities and the never-ending cosmos, of worlds big and small and how he never wanted Oikawa— _the either of them—_ to stay in places too small. 

Still on earth, Oikawa waits for an answer.

(And even at eight, Iwaizumi knows the importance of not holding promises you might not able to keep.) 

( _Even if it would be a promise he'd like to keep._ ) 

So he moves to answer, more unsure than usual. "One day," Iwaizumi tells him instead, right when the first curtain falls, and some kingdoms fall in favor of new ones. Oikawa rises up by the lift of his shoulders, all hasty and ready to fight, before finding the will to settle. He smiles, uneasy, before smoothing it out for the world to see. 

"One day, then," he tells Iwaizumi right back, and the way he says it sounds like a pact to be made. Not a breeze, or a wisp trying to be, but a current with a name.

 

 

 

 

 

* * *

 

  


 

 

By next spring, Oikawa’s new house stretches across the property, stone instead of wood but still traditional in its stance. It overlooks Iwaizumi’s house from the top of the hill, a newly planted gingko tree peeking out over the stone steps, and Iwaizumi even thinks he might be able to spot a volleyball net by the fences.

"It's perfect," Oikawa says, squaring up to meet his new home. Eyes go wide, and it's love at first sight. At the front door, Iwaizumi just takes in the smell of the season, something fresh instead of cinders, and Oikawa hums along to newly hung wind chimes. His mother calls from inside the house, stacking moving boxes in the hallway, and two boys take that as time to start moving in. 

(And well, it's not like Iwaizumi wanted to live with him much longer, _anyway._ ) 

"Hey, Oikawa," Iwaizumi calls in spite of himself. When he holds his hand out, a single fist out for the other to see, Oikawa holds his hand out to bump, knuckles delicate in the brush. " _Ah,_ no—" Iwaizumi says, correcting himself, and lets his hand unfold with a bit of a laugh. 

" _Iwa-chan_."

Iwaizumi refrains from sentimentalities. He doesn’t say _it’s for anytime you want to stay._ He drops a key into Oikawa's palm instead, freshly minted, promises to be kept, and the two of them welcome a new home into the fray.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

  
  
  
  
  


"You asked me once, _What are we made of?_ Well, these are the things we’re made of. One house, two house. The road goes away from here."

 - **_The Stag and the Quiver,_ by Richard Siken**

  
  
  
  


 

 

 

 

 

 

  
  
  


It's summertime, the mild sort that reeks of post-rain, and the two of them are standing outside an old house in Sangenjaya under a shared umbrella. Iwaizumi Hajime is twenty-five when Oikawa hands him a new key to a place he'd like to call _a black hole at the heart of the city_ , and he wonders if inheriting this place would actually be worth living in it. 

"It's... _neat_ ," Oikawa says anyway, right on the verge of his next birthday, and he's got a boxed birthday cake on top of his luggage and all his moving boxes (because they were supposed to celebrate tonight). "I mean, you can tell this house gets great light on sunny days, and it has that _rustic charm and_ —" 

"This place is a dump," Iwaizumi has no problem saying. "No need to bullshit me."

"Now, now, Iwa-chan, you'll get wrinkles if you insist on being so negative—"

"Say it with me: _this place is a dump._ Or haunted." At this, Iwaizumi picks up his belongings anyway, bounds up the stairs, and leaves Oikawa in the dust. He goes up to the door, knocking as if they'll be someone on the other side, and remembers a house's emptiness. _Just them._ Iwaizumi goes red in the face when he remembers that fact. 

"Hey, but it isn't so bad, right?" Oikawa asks, coming right behind him. "It's a perfect place to keep a promise," he says, all breezy, a full blown gale by now, and the summer winds just have to pick up after that. Right on command.

"A promise, huh?" Iwaizumi asks, mouth edged into something like a smile, nearly there but not quite, and Oikawa just tilts his head, a feint pretending to _hurt._

"What? You don't remember?" 

Iwaizumi sours, thinks about knocking that birthday cake of his right back down the stairs, but thinks that might bring on bad tidings. He just turns the key to their new house without saying a word, kicking up the dust along the way, and Oikawa just follows, ever-present. 

( _Because they both know they'd never forget_.)

  
  


 

 

 

 

* * *

 

  
  
  


They share a plate of apples on the floor over a bed sheet.

"I don't know," Oikawa says, holding a few paint swatches over his head. He's been caught between a light yellow and a rather pale periwinkle all afternoon, but Iwaizumi's already told him a _million times_ that he doesn't care what color they paint the walls. He just slides the plate over to Oikawa, beckoning him to eat because he's neglected to all afternoon, and goes back to reading his do-it-yourself books from the library—he'd much rather address the _real_ issues anyway, like how the roof still leaks when it rains, and that terrible draft in the kitchen that'll be _hell_ come wintertime. 

Still, Oikawa rolls closer to him. On his stomach, he lets his legs kick up behind him like a child, and it reminds Iwaizumi of what feels like a lifetime ago; old bedsheets hang up with string lights, and they're playing instead of worrying about electric bills. It's a nice memory, he thinks, but not one to be dwelled on, and Oikawa picks up on it, too. He flips to a page in another book, to a section called, _"making your house a home,"_ and stays to read more on the matter.

  
  


 

 

 

* * *

 

  
  
  
  


 

 

" _Iwa-chan_ ," Oikawa says one day when they're sitting on the roof together, bone-tired and drowsy after a day of plastering new wallpaper (since they had ultimately decided against paint). Iwaizumi wipes the sweat off his brow in turning, ready to welcome the night, his best friend, and catches Oikawa in something serious, instead.

"What's wrong?" he asks him back, and Oikawa just shakes all his cares away. He peers up, past the city lights and a clouded evening, and Iwaizumi stares up with him.

"Nothing," he says all quiet, and Iwaizumi's bound to believe him this time. "I was just thinking, you know, while we were bringing the rest of our boxes in." 

"Yeah? Well, if you think too loudly, the ghosts will come out during the night. I heard one while I was trying to sleep," Iwaizumi insists, and he isn't joking this time, because he's sure he heard something go bump in the night in his room. Maybe this is what he gets for sleeping too close to the floorboards.

"What?" Oikawa asks, obviously distracted, but Iwaizumi waves him off. _Nevermind,_ Iwaizumi mouths, and Oikawa finds his place again. " _Well, anyway_ ," he continues, reaching up for nothing in particular, like a new star might just form in his palms, "I was thinking, because you know what this is. All of this."

Iwaizumi sighs, weak enough so Oikawa might not hear. "I know." 

"So you _do_ remember our promise?" he asks, nudging Iwaizumi in the side.

"Shut up before I knock you off the roof."

At this, Oikawa laughs. They loom quiet soon after, as quiet as a city will allow them, and let Sangenjaya overtake them ahead. Somewhere in the near distance, friends call for another round of beers and karaoke. A bus wheel breaks at a nearby stop, and the last round of sparrows look for their roosts to sleep in. Oikawa's breath hitches, because he's looking for the words to say, and Iwaizumi just lets him find them. 

"I was just wondering—" 

And like it's the easiest thing in the world, Oikawa keeps his head to the sky.

"—just how do you make a place a home, Iwa-chan?"

  
  


 

 

 

* * *

 

  
  


 

("Because we're only going to be here a short while, right?" he asks right after, neither specifying a time or or deadline—but Iwaizumi knows, more than anyone and anything, and keeps himself small at the mercy of it.)

  
  


 

 

 

* * *

 

  
  


They fill the house with things they might need later.

Iwaizumi buys mismatched chairs at secondhand stores, while Oikawa buys throw blankets and dishes for the kitchen. _It's a strange house,_ they all tell them, from parents to old classmates and every other vagabond visitor in between, and the two of them just laugh it off—because it really might be the most ridiculous thing Iwaizumi's ever done, to live in this house with an ex-olympic star and his wayward whims—but he thinks he's used to it by now, _maybe fond of it,_ and he'd rather keep the momentum going. 

"Hey, Iwa-chan," Oikawa calls from their bed sheet on the floor one day, after all their visitors have gone, and Iwaizumi looks up from a book on _constructing the perfect bookcase._ Oikawa's unearthed a photo album from one of their moving boxes, and he holds up an old polaroid of them from a familiar scene: eight-year old Oikawa walks into a wonderland of cardboard boxes, string lights above and with Iwaizumi to follow. 

 _A nice memory,_ Iwaizumi thinks at once, at something he might let linger this time.

"You know what I'm thinking, Oikawa?"

Oikawa smiles. "What?"

(He grins wide and sneaky, when he pulls the bed sheet from right under Oikawa. Time to raise their palaces, again. Let their kingdom come.)

  


 

 

 

* * *

 

 

 

 

 

“Iwa-chan,” Oikawa mutters from under their newest attempt at a blanket fort, maybe hours later. “Won't you sleep soon, too?” 

Iwaizumi lies that he might. 

(And he really might, because he's gotten better at sharing small spaces and makeshift beds.) 

"Good night, Iwa-chan."

(He dreams of home until he drifts. It kind of looks like _here._ )

  
  


 

 

 

* * *

 

  
  


 

 

Iwaizumi hears him over the phone. It's early in the morning, barely eight, and Oikawa's on the roof again. 

"Three more weeks," he says to his mother, _always his mother_. "By the end of summer, I'll be packed and ready to go."

At this, Iwaizumi lets himself hang out at the sill a little longer, willing to wait for Oikawa to come back for breakfast. Chest heavy with something he'd like to blame on an empty stomach, he remembers the books he's been reading when Oikawa falls asleep first, all matters of _how to make your house a home._  

He knows it is no longer a matter of hunger pangs.

Iwaizumi calls it a homesickness. 

(Oikawa Tooru looks back, light with the morning like he isn't the cause of it.)

  
  
  
  


 

 

* * *

 

  
  
  


 

 

"Do you think we'll ever get to live together again next year?" Oikawa asks, when he's got luggage instead of moving boxes out one day, and airport tags to match. "Right in time for summer?"

"If you don't realize how much you actually hate it here." 

"I won't," Oikawa says, laughing. "I still believe in its _rustic charm_."

Iwaizumi scoffs and checks another provision off Oikawa's moving list. "And what if I just bought us a new place in Shibuya, instead? Not some _dump_ we have to fix up every rainy season."

"You know that's not the same," Oikawa insists, voice smaller in his answer, and Iwaizumi knows the gravity of it by now. With a sigh, he lowers a hammer away from the wall instead, almost done with their newest installation of string lights _,_ and joins Oikawa down on the floor. 

They hold their silence, a moment of remembrance for a summer gone past. He thinks of the ones to come, the ones they might spend together and apart, and seeks to keep a promise. 

"If you want to," Iwaizumi tells him. _One day_. He looks up to find Oikawa, face lit up like he's won the lottery. "It's not a big deal, though," he amends, because it isn't, and it's not like Oikawa's moving to the other side of the galaxy; but he does end up thinking of the sprawling cities he'll visit and the conquered cosmos, of worlds big and small and how he never wanted Oikawa— _the either of them_ —to stay in places too small in the first place.

"Do you want to?" Oikawa asks right back, and Iwaizumi wonders why he even has to ask in the first place.

(Because at twenty-five, Iwaizumi still knows the importance of keeping promises.) 

( _And this is a promise he'd like to keep_.) 

So "I do," Iwaizumi says, and they both know how much he means it.

 

 

 

Because despite the fires that roar and the houses that creak,  _home_ is a person sometimes.  


 

 

 

* * *

 

  
  
  
  


Down the horizon line, past the city limits and towering silhouettes, stands an empty rooftop where two boys used to sit in reprieve. Eyes kept up, Iwaizumi drags his luggage down to the street, and draws up plans for seasons to come, never a goodbye.

"See you next summer," he whispers, to a plane in the sky.

 

  
  


**Author's Note:**

> ANYHOO, come find me at @iwakages on twitter or companions.tumblr.com! bye!


End file.
